In 2011, the number of startup jobs jumped 23.5% from a year ago according to StartupHire.com. As you can guess, the state with the most startup jobs is California. I live in the heart of Silicon Valley. This is really ground zero for startups in America. I am surrounded by some of the most well known companies in the planet such as Apple, Google and Facebook. These giant companies were once startups too. It seems that every business park is cramped wall to wall with young companies hoping to make it big or get acquired. The amount of money being poured into new ventures is just incredible. Some of the best and brightest people in the world are coming to Silicon Valley to make their fortune. This reminds me of the Internet boom that we experienced in in the late 90′s.

This new gold rush is presenting an enormous opportunity for people with technical skills. Right now in the startup world, the jobs with the most openings are centered around the software industry. These are companies that are creating the next cool iPhone app or cloud-based service. The most common job title in 2011 was software engineer followed by senior software engineer. Not only are there more computer jobs than people but the pay is averaging closing to $100,000 annually in Silicon Valley.

There is no better time to be in the tech industry. The graph below shows some interesting information about startups.